In olden times there were an extremely large number of thieves. Many laws were implemented such as prison sentences, forced labour on ships, exile, and even death. There are documented cases of severe punishments for people who stole just a loaf of bread.
However, the number of thieves remained high because the root of the problem was not tackled. Then somebody thought of social services and the number of thieves went down drastically. There was another outbreak of thievery when drugs where made illegal. That’s why I believe that drugs should be decriminalised but regarded as antisocial with continuous campaigns in this regard.
At present there is a movement against hunting, which wants to get its way by passing laws. I think that to achieve a permanent change you should see what the problem is and try to eradicate it. Young hunters may enjoy hunting because they have happy memories of hunting in the company of their loved ones. So instead of passing prohibitory laws you should try to break this generation solidarity where hunting is concerned and introduce something else instead.
I would suggest that hunters who encourage their children to take up some other hobby would be rewarded by having their hunting fee halved. Also, established hunters who join the skeet shooters instead of hunting should be rewarded, maybe by money donated by environmentalists.
The same argument could be applied to people who are against the eating of meat. Instead of trying to convince everybody to become vegetarian, they should militate so that meat grown in the lab would become affordable and plentiful but there are many vested interests to keep this idea back. In my contribution “Withholding progress” I suggested how we can overcome these vested interests that hinder progress.
Many laws are effective, not because they are enforced; that would need a dictator and huge, savage police and army forces, but because the large majority of the populace agree with their need.
Josephine Gatt-Ciancio
Kalkara